The inventive subject matter relates to wireless communications and, more particularly to device discovery in wireless communications.
A mobile terminal in a wireless mobile network typically only communicates with one or more network base stations. However, it is often useful to have knowledge about other mobile terminals that currently are located in relatively close proximity. For example, such information may be of use for local remote controlling or finding friends in the neighborhood (e.g., for gaming, localized commercials, automatic alarm system control, etc.).
In order to discover devices being within the same area, one can utilize Internet-based so-called “over the top” services. Such approaches may involve a terminal using its GPS receiver to find its position and transmitting the position coordinates to a server located on the Internet. The server may identify other devices that are within a certain proximity to the terminal. However devices to be found may need to use the same non-standardized system for discovery, and there may be integrity and security issues with transmitting position information to a central database.